lower house being elected by the people in good English fashion. The laws passed by these bodies could be vetoed by the colonial governor, or overruled by the English government.

B. Executive Branch, consisting of a colonial governor with extensive powers in addition to the veto power. Rhode Island and Connecticut had elective governors; in the other colonies the governors were appointed by the proprietor or by the king.

C. Judicial Branch, consisting of judges usually appointed by the governor and responsible only to England.

Although in form the legislatures, the governors, and the judges were all subject to the English government, yet there was but little interference from the distant motherland. The colonies voted their own taxes, carried on their own Indian wars, and regulated their own suffrage. Suffrage was very much restricted. In Massachusetts and New Haven, in the earlier years, only members of the Congregationalist Church could vote. All the colonies had a property qualification. The majority of the adult men, up to the time of the Revolution, were not voters.

Oppressions. As the colonies became of more importance, and especially after a very pig-headed and autocratic king, George III, came to the throne in England, the government of the colonies became harsh and arbitrary. Among the several distinct oppressions complained of by the colonists were the following: (1) Trade restrictions; they were compelled to export their chief products in English ships only, to import from England only, and were permitted to manufacture only such things as were not

made in England. tempts to seize goods unlawfully imported. (3) Quartering of troops on them in time of peace. (4) Denial of trial by jury in certain cases. (5) Taxation without representation, by acts of the English Parliament, in which the colonies had no voice. These abuses led to resistance and to preliminary steps towards union.

(2) Searching of their houses, in at

2. Preliminary Steps Toward Union.-A. Stamp Act Congress. In 1765 representatives from nine colonies (seven was the greatest number ever represented before this time. in any one gathering) met in New York, and, as loyal English subjects, drew up a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances." ." This set forth the rights of the colonists to the liberties of Englishmen, especially the right to tax themselves, and petitioned for a repeal of the oppressive trade restrictions. This declaration won the colonists a few friends in Parliament, but secured no whit of the rights they were asking for. Indeed, it was only two years later that the infamous tax was placed on tea which led to the “Boston Tea Party."

B. The First Continental Congress (1774).- Nine years after the Stamp Act Congress, grievances having rapidly multiplied, the First Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia. This time there were twelve colonies represented. Another Declaration of Rights was drawn up, claiming for the colonists the right of making their own laws, subject only to the royal veto. Before adjourning, this Congress arranged for committees in the towns and villages of the land to organize those who favored resistance to England.

C. The Second Continental Congress (1775-1781).The Second Continental Congress, or, as it is also called, the Revolutionary Government, met after war had actually broken out at Lexington and Concord. It was a revolutionary government in the sense that "not a single member had instructions which justified him in aiding to organize

Independence Hall-The Room where the Declaration was Adopted a government." Yet, in the face of dire necessity, which is the strongest of laws, this Congress proceeded to exercise the great powers of sovereignty; it raised armies and navies, carried on war, issued paper money, borrowed money, sent ambassadors to foreign countries, made treaties, adopted the Declaration of Independence, and proposed the Articles of Confederation to the States. The Declaration of Independence, in lofty and dignified phrase, set

forth the reasons for separation, and declared, "That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States." From this time on we have States, not colonies, to deal with.

3. The Confederation (March 2, 1781-March 4, 1789).There are two things to notice in the government under the Articles of Confederation: (1) the government of the individual States on the one hand, and (2) the government of the Union or "Confederation" on the other. Let us look first at the States. Of course the old colonial governments collapsed in 1775; the royal governors were driven out when war began. From 1776 to 1780 eleven States adopted written constitutions. The old charters in Connecticut and Rhode Island, being liberal, answered as State constitutions. Thus we see that when the Fathers came to frame a federal constitution, they found thirteen "sovereign States" at work, each with a complete written constitution of its own and each with the usual three branches of government. This made it easier to frame a constitution, for there were thirteen models. It made it harder to get that constitution adopted, for each State was jealous of the proposed Union.

The Articles of Confederation were discussed in the Continental Congress from time to time. They were finally submitted to the States, which one by one adopted them, the last of the thirteen taking this step in 1781, after four years of hesitation. The two Continental Congresses of Revolutionary fame gave place to the Congress of the Confederation. But this was near the end of the war. The State governments, now feeling their own strength, came to have a contempt for the weakness of the Confederation.

The government under the Articles of Confederation possessed powers that were vague and illusory. There was no President, no Senate, no Supreme Court. The government was a rope of sand. "It was a weak attempt to organize a Government, but it answered so long as the common peril of British subjugation lasted. When that threat was withdrawn by the peace of 1783, the selfishness and jealousies of the States became intense and threatened to snap the feeble bonds that held them in Union. The Congress became the laughingstock of the country, and the best men shunned it. It had contracted debts in the prosecution of the war; and the States neglecting or refusing to pay their quotas, Congress was protested and dishonored, for it had no power to lay and collect taxes. It had made commercial treaties with foreign Powers, and the States refused to allow in their ports the privileges guaranteed by the treaties. Congress was a mimic show, the butt of jealousy and ridicule. Great things were demanded of men who could do nothing."

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There was too much State sovereignty. Each State, for instance, made its own tariff laws. New York wanted to protect the wood industry at home, and levied a tariff on firewood coming in from Connecticut. Garden truck from New Jersey likewise paid tariff duty when crossing the line into New York State. A critical period ensued: State was quarreling with State. The States seemed ready to fly at one another at any moment. This condition led John Jay to write to Washington, "I am uneasy and apprehensive, more so than during the war." President Harrison has

1 Harrison, "This Country of Ours," pp. 7, 8.